Germany To Install More Charging Stations To Boost Electric Car Sales

The German Transport Ministry is preparing a new initiative to expand the charging stations network as a way to increase sales of EVs on the roadmap for 1 million by 2020.

According to the article, there are aproximately 100 DC quick chargers installed (we believe that there are slightly more, but maybe not all are public and this excludesproprietary chargers like Tesla Superchargers) and some 4,800 AC slow or semi-fast – mostly 3-phase 22 kW type 2.

Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt stated:

“We will set up quick service charging stations along the motorways across Germany.”

The government probably will subsidizes installations and we expect that will do it in a way to create charging points compatible with German-made cars from BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen groups, which means Combo plugs.

There are already charging partners willing to get the expansion going:

“The Transport Ministry paper said German motorway services operator Tank & Rast GmbH was due to set up quick service charging stations and parking spots at its 400 sites by 2017.”

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Damn it. I feel like the USA screwed itself on DC fast-charging. The Japanese all lined up behind Chademo and pushed it here. Japan is solidly Chademo. All the German companies and the US companies lined up behind SAE-CCS. And now the German government will strongly stand behind SAE-CCS to help the German auto makers.

But in the USA, our government of gridlock won’t do much to deploy a charging network. So we get a mish-mash of existing Chademo and a few SAE-CCS. But not much is growing except the Tesla supercharger network.

Perhaps what we should do is go all supercharger. Ford & GM would be wise to do some type of license deal with Tesla on that.

Note that the European CCS type 2 is NOT the same as the SAE CCS type1 proposed for the US.

But you are right, the SAE CCS type 1 really is the orphan of the world without US government support.

The domestic manufacturers should do a deal with Tesla to use their connector for QCDC and abandon the SAE CCS type 1. The Tesla connector supports all needed modes at higher power levels, and it takes up less space. They can keep the J1772 in the interim for plug-in hybrids that don’t really need QCDC.

Maybe. We’ll see how well that goes once they have to spend some real money.

The i3 volume isn’t that big, so it’s hard to see it outside a few cities, most likely in California where at least some of the compliance vehicles could use it.

The Tesla plug is still a better universal solution in every possible way and worthy of adoption, especially since Tesla has agreed to license it for free. Unfortunately the bow tie wearing, entitlement minded, pre-retirement boffins that make up the SAE committees have chronic “not invented here” syndrome that prevents them from considering a better solution. Sad, really. The SAE doesn’t operate at Internet speed and is long overdue for an overhaul.

How about this for a novel solution… Tesla builds high capacity inter-city Superchargers and BMW builds urban mid-rate chargers. Both companies use the same connector and operating costs are allocated based on usage. Other companies can buy into the model as and when desired. Fastest way to build a national network using a private funding model. It would also stimulate the development of both urban and long distance capable models from manufacturers.

So all the CCS combo camp companies and their many obviously capable engineers disregarded chademo based on SAE recommendation. Wrong. They all had a hand in contributing to the spec and believing that it was superior. Right. Aside I am a fan of the Tesla plug as I have a deposit on an X.

Well I’m not overly fond of CHAdeMO either, although its wide spread adoption and popularity can’t be ignored. And there are no royalties for for adopting either CHAdeMO or Tesla, just ego consequences.

What should be considered is what’s right for the industry going forward. There is no existing connector as flexible, future proof, or as convenient as the Tesla connector. Let’s use it!

I don’t think fast charging (other than Tesla) will really get going until good cheap high discharge rate batteries are installed at the fast charging stations to keep the demand charges within reason.

I was under the impression all Tesla stations were initially going to have batteries but turns out almost none of the later Supercharger installations have them.

I bet that when a good cheap battery arrives, the Tesla stations will be retrofitted with them, and the same applies to any L3 stations.

In operation, the batteries would continually charge over a 24 hour period, or else, optionally a much larger battery pack would be provided that would only charge on off-peak hours when the electricity was cheapest, and then dump the charge into the cars during the daytime.

Depending on the popularity of the particular station it could require alot of batteries. Hence the need for good and cheap.

But without a battery buffer, ultimately I really don’t see how stations sans solar panels will be able to afford the electricity bill.

MA is considering a waiver, on demand charges for roadside EV charging. If they are unavoidable, I think there’s room to charge more for the fast watt convenience, on highways. The bantor over the issue removed any doubt I had that these charges are a factor, even for 3 phase DC.

I am not certain, but believe battery grid storage is being considered by units of demand, rather than time (CA @1.3GW, for example). I am not sure where the engineering math lands on how big a battery has to be, to replace the line from a Tesla charger, for instance, but costs like that really sap liquidity.

Well, I know outside of the US they don’t do demand charges, but do pay a “Demand Contracted for”, even for residential customers, which is a construct usually in the US only imposed on large industrial or very large commerical customers.

Of course, gov’ts can subsidize anything, with the realization that others will be paying the cost…

The purpose of both Demand Charges and “Demand Contracted For” is to put the expense of someone ‘overusing’ a service on the entity causing it, and, of course, to encourage behavior which will smooth out the load onto existing ‘low-cost’ facilities so that needless additional monies don’t need to be unnecessarily spent.

Tesla’s model works since they get not only $2000 per car, but also its been hinted at ‘credits’ for each supercharger stall. I keep asking how much they get precisely but it might be considered proprietary information, but I would gather its much more valuable than the $2000.

Perhaps that is why Tesla doesn’t seem worried enough about demand charges to install solar panels on batteries on their recent installations.

If Tesla Superchargers slow down when reaching full on a Model S, it is clear the car tells it to slow down; so, why could Nissan not go with the Model S solution for their primary receptacle, and software to tell the Supercharger to start out at a rate of 50 – 60 kW?

It could be upgraded to the Tesla 10 kW onboard charger, too, giving it a shorter base recharge time, and options to benefit from shared Tesla home chargers, and take advantage of the public 60 Amp Clipper Creek / Sun Country Highway charging stations, too!